All the confetti

Fasnacht is the Swiss German equivalent of Mardi Gras. It is the time of year when ordinarily quite reserved Germanic citizens of the region have full collective permission to step out of line. I have now witnessed even the most reserved accountants and insurance adjusters reveling at the chance to disobey societal rules and make noise, sing, eat and drink until the cows come home.

The word “Fasnacht” is derived from the idea of fasting. In old German, “Fasta” means fasting time and “Naht” stands for night - hence “Fastnacht” means Fasting Night. Though the season starts in mid-February, you really start to feel Swiss merrymaking, debauchery, and all around frolicing the week and a half before Ash Wednesday. During this period, most everything is allowed - especially eating sugar and meat, drinking alcohol and celebrating.

At daycare, the kids dress up in Halloween style costumes every day. They come home covered in face paint. EVERY. NIGHT. Candy (which is usually not allowed at daycare) flows freely and everyone lives on a sugar high.

Yes, we wore a Christmas dress to daycare in February. Anything goes!

Baby doll got in on the action! (Face paint also comes off plastic!)

We wanted a unicorn instead of a butterfly by day 3.

One snow boot, one water shoe. Totally appropriate!

Valentine hearts & Santa PJs. We're really in the spirt now!

Cinderella is ready to greet you

I even impressed the daycare teachers with this costume. Penguin anyone?

Apparently she requested "mermaid skin". Bless those teachers, they figured it out.

At school, it’s slightly tamer, with just one day of celebrating. But it's a full day. Ariel with a unicorn face? Yes. Please.

Besides the school & daycare activities there are also parades. And when I say parade, I mean P . A . R . A . D . E ! I’m pretty sure the entire country lined the street to watch. (Please note I said “street” & not “streets”. There’s only one in the country.)

The bands all play “Guggenmusik”. Gugga bands are costumed bands who uniquely always play slightly out of tune while remaining harmonic. Guggenmusik is most commonly played with brass instruments, pipes and percussion instruments. The most frequently used instruments are kettledrums, trumpets, tubas, trombones or cymbals. And it is always loud. Very. Very. Very. Loud.

Adam & I were hiding the candy in our pockets to slow the inhaling of sugar by the tiny humans. One of them figured out the game.

In summary, there is music, there is candy, there are adorable costumes, there are scary costumes. There is a lot of beer. There is even more confetti. Like so much confetti. Like I found some in my dishwasher six months after the parade levels of confetti.

But here's the thing about the Swiss. They have top-notch cleaning crews eagerly awaiting the last Guggenmusik trumpet tune to fade! Then, they go to town and just a few hours later, the streets will appear cleaner than ever...

This is the same street when I drove through at 7:45 the next morning to go to work.

Amanda planned a ski holiday...with a pool

Sometimes everyone just needs a break. 2023 was a great year for the family with many milestones, a few exciting trips and more than a little time together. In anticipation of needing something a little different than our usual holiday travels, Amanda found a reasonably priced all-inclusive holiday stay for our transition between 2023 and 2024. So rather than playing tourist for a couple weeks in various cities across Europe we drove 2 hours to Oetz and setup camp for one glorious week of relaxing, dining and skiing in western Austria.

All-inclusivism was a bit of a mystery for us going into this trip. Amanda typically prefers to control our travel plans so her interest in taking a step back and letting the vacation come to us so to speak was quite a surprise when she suggested it. But as the months went by and we got closer to the trip we both became more excited about it. Amanda wouldn't have to meal or activity plan and I wouldn't have to drive or carry luggage around public transit terminals!

Dining is probably the thing most all-inclusives are best known for and our experience in Oetz was definitely on par. Breakfast and Dinner were included at the hotel and after the second day the staff realized that Olivia really likes blackberries so every morning this was waiting at her spot at the table.

Although she wasn't sure about the yogurt that showed up the third morning.

Dinners were very good even though the menu was somewhat limited. We see this frequently in central Europe though, so we've learned to expect that you'll only get 3 or 4 meal options to choose from and that unless you really don't like one of the dishes on offer it's all very high quality. Of course trying to tell the kids that they can eat something other than Schnitzel mit Pommes is the most challenging aspect of dinning out. But at least they loved dessert while we got wine!

Even the butter was fancy!

The resort also had all our personal details and realized that we celebrated both our anniversary and my birthday during our stay there. And they made sure we were spoiled for both.

Oh I almost forgot. There was also an afternoon snack which was enjoyed by someone daily. Can't imagine why!

Each day was a little different. We enrolled Charlotte in 3 days of ski lessons and so she and I took the gondola up the mountain to ski most days. Amanda and Olivia played games in the hotel or found playgrounds in the valley to explore or relaxed by the pool while we were gone. 

But the best days were the ones we spent together!

Because they normally ended like this!

For our first foray into all-inclusive vacationing, I think it went pretty well. Perhaps not something we will manage every time we go on holiday but certainly something worth considering for those times when we all need a break!